# gack
## English
### Pronunciation

* enPR: găk, IPA: /ɡæk/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -æk
* Homophone: gac

### Etymology 1

Apparently onomatopoeic and believed to have first appeared in comic strips. Compare gag (“to choke; to retch”) and hack (“to cough noisily”).
The "cocaine" and "meth" senses apparently comes from the fact that snorting the drugs often activates a person's gag reflex.

#### Alternative forms

* gak

#### Interjection

gack
* (often repeated several times) A sharp, sudden sound from someone's throat while they're coughing, vomiting, gagging, etc.
** 1999 April, Carole Nelson Douglas, “Newsmaker, Heartbreaker”, in Cat in an Indigo Mood'‎, Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN, page 198:Sports was immediately consigned to a recycle pile where it was handy in case she heard the unmistakable gack-gack-gack machine-gun regurgitation sound of Midnight Louie about to deposit a hairball on some particularly cherished piece of paper or furniture.
** 2006, J. C. Greenburg, Andrew Lost in the Garbage‎, 1st edition, Random House Children's Books, →ISBN, page 64:With loud pops, a cloud of blue smoke exploded from the beetle's behind. A steaming spray that stunk worse than burning rubber shot into the air. "Ack!" gagged Andrew. "Gack! Gack! Gack!" coughed Judy.
** 2016 October, Bryan Cranston, quoting John Shiban, Breaking Bad #212 "Title TBD" Writer's Draft‎, September 17, 2008, quoted in Life in Parts, Scribner, →ISBN, page 204:Gravity does the rest as Jane's vomit spills back into her trachea. Guck-guck- GACK...guck-gack....GACK! GACK!...GACK!
* An expression of disgust or disapproval.
** a. 2004, Mister Moose [pseudonym], “Arriving in New Zealand: My First Experiences in This Far Off Land”, in MisterMoose.org‎, archived from the original on 2004-04-10:The family wanted me to try marmite, which is some sort of dark brown yeast extract that many Kiwis seem to enjoy. […] The family asked me to try it saying that it "tastes better than it smells." They were completely wrong. Gack! No more marmite for this boy.
* An expression of trepidation.
** 1995 March, Mary Daheim, Major Vices‎, Avon Books, →ISBN, page 112:“Gack,” said Judith. “I don’t remember that. I wish you hadn’t. […] ”
** 2012 September 20, Brandylion [pseudonym], “After A Year And A Half – NOW You Find Out He Doesn’t Want A Serious Relationship – EVER!”, in Have The Relationship You Want‎, archived from the original on 2022-09-10, Comments:Gack! Me too! I spent the whole decade of my 20s too afraid to try even online dating and I just focused on my career and doing things that interested me, and I feel SO AFRAID that if I return to focusing on my life that another decade will go by before I know it and I'll still be single and childless.

#### Verb

gack (third-person singular simple present gacks, present participle gacking, simple past and past participle gacked)
* (intransitive) To make a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat, such as before vomiting or while coughing, gagging, etc.
** 1999, Dennis Lehane, Payers for Rain, 1st edition, New York: William Morrow and Company, →ISBN, page 31:I slipped the punch, dropped the paper, and closed my right hand around his throat. I backed him into his desk and pushed him onto his back. […] He rubbed his throat, gacked like a cat spitting up a hair ball.
** 2015, Kristan Higgins, If You Only Knew‎, Harlequin Books, →ISBN, page 248:Then we hear the unmistakable gacking of a dog about to puke. Ooah. Ooah. Ooaah... And puke Loki does, right under the coffee table.
* To do something that causes a sharp, sudden sound in one's throat.
** (intransitive) To vomit, throw up.
*** 1996, Pat Pollari, Barf-o-Rama: The Legend of Bigfart‎, Transworld Books, published 1997, →ISBN, page 6:I mean, if cheese could make me gack, you know that poop snake, coiled around that worthless pen, wasn't going to calm my jumpy stomach down.
** (transitive) To cough something up.
*** 2006, Gary Paulsen, The Amazing Life of Birds‎, 1st edition, Wendy Lam Books, →ISBN, page 12:It reminded me of the time Willy tried to get a whole hamburger in his mouth on a bet. […] he almost choked to death before we figured out how to do the Heimlich maneuver on him. […] finally Pete Honer said, "He's turning blue," and we all just grabbed something and squeezed and he gacked it up and out. Pickles and all.
** (intransitive) To choke (be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe)
*** 2010, Jeff Lindsay, Dexter is Delicious‎, Orion Books, →ISBN, page 340:[…] Chutsky came around and kicked the other one in the throat, so hard I could hear it crack, and he went over backward making gacking noises and clutching at his windpipe.u
** (intransitive) To choke (experience tightness in one's throat as a result of strong emotion)
*** 2010, Yxta Maya Murray, The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Kidnapped‎, Penguin Group, →ISBN, page 178:My throat made some gacking noises, though. No, no crying! Stiff lip, stiff lip, stiff lip—you got an interview! I stood in the kitchen, shaking and swallowing everything down.

#### Noun

gack (uncountable)
* (slang) Crystal meth.
* (slang) Powder cocaine.
** 2005, Niall Griffiths, Wreckage‎, Vintage, published 2006, →ISBN, page 217:—What, an he deals gack on the side? / —Aye, yeh. Dead easy for him to get a hold of, innit? / —How's that, well? / —Every fuckin ozzy's gorra supply of charlie, Dar. Skag n all. Best fuckin painkillers goin, lar.
** 2009 March, Christopher John Campion, Escape from Bellevue: A Dive Bar Odyssey‎, Gotham Books, →ISBN, page 195:Getting gilled on gack without the precious reward of a drink on top, though, really sucked. Alcohol was my great love. Cocaine was just something I did to keep my altitude up […]
** 2017, Roman Caribe [pseudonym], Robert Cea, “Bait and Switch”, in Confidential Source Ninety-Six, Hachette Books, →ISBN:Robbie dug his hand in and pulled out a loose kilo of cocaine. […] Robbie held up a kilo for me to hold, but there was no way I was going to touch one single package. The last thing I wanted were my fingerprints on that gack […]

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

Apparently onomatopoeic. Compare German gack (“call of a hen”), German gackern (“(of a chicken) to loudly and repetitive cry”), and Dutch gakken (“(of a goose) to honk”).
Pokorny compared German gackern to words including English gaggle, Latvian gâgát (“cry like a goose”), Russian gogotátь (gogotátʹ, “(of geese) cackle; laugh loudly”), Old Norse gaga (“mock, ridicule”), and Albanian gogësínj (“yawn, burp”), among others. Pokorny considered common origin or separate innovation both as possibilities to explain the similarities.

#### Interjection

gack
* The sound of a bird's call in response to disturbance.
** 2009, Rachel Dickinson, Falconer on the Edge‎, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 97&endash;98:It was a big downy chick, about twenty-three days old. […] Steve shot ptargmigan for it, and every time it ate or saw Steve it would scream, Gack gack gack gack, […]
** 2010, Eugene S. Hunn, Thomas F. Thornton, “Tlingit Birds: An Annotated List with a Statistical Comparative Analysis”, in Sonia Tidemann, Andrew Gosler, editors, Ethno-Ornithology: Birds, Indigenous Peoples, Culture and Society, Earthscan, →ISBN, pages 195—196:k’eikw’w, Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla, a cliff-nesting gull and an important clan symbol or ‘totem’. […] The bird is described as a smaller version or relative of the ‘seagull’, a colonial cliff-nesting species that when disturbed forms swirling masses of birds overhead which call ‘gack, gack, gack, gack’.

#### Verb

gack (third-person singular simple present gacks, present participle gacking, simple past and past participle gacked)
* (of a bird) To call in response to disturbance.
** 1977, Jon Fjeldså, Guide to the Young of European Precocial Birds, →ISBN, page 59:During a disturbance the young run to the water and dive from fear, […] On other occasions the adults swim or walk about, incessantly gacking.

### References

* 1 2 Pokorny, Julius (1959) “gha gha, ghe ghe, ghi ghi”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 407

## Swedish
### Etymology

From Old Norse gakk, compare dialectal Norwegian Nynorsk gakk.

### Verb

gack
* (archaic) singular imperative of gå